[alehel]

I just got a reply from Penguin explaining why they don't have book covers on their ebooks. I thought I'd put it here as it might be of interest to others.

Dear Aleksander

Sorry that you did not receive a reply to your email about book covers on ebooks. I'm afraid the answer is quite prosaic - we bought the rights to use certain images and designs on our book jackets prior to the launch of ebooks and (perhaps shortsightedly) did not acquire electronic rights in these jackets images. For this reason, we cannot use them on the 'covers' of our ebooks though we are embarking on a process to get these rights which will mean that at some point in the future our ebooks will have jacket images. Tasters are exempt from this as they are a marketing sample rather than a retailed title.

Please rest assured that the content of the ebooks is identical to that of the printed title. Also, if you are using an ebook reader (rather than desktop software) jackets will not be displayed in their full multi-coloured glory.

Again, apologies for the delayed response. Since I hope this answers your question I have removed your comment from the blog.

Best

Digital Publisher
Penguin UK

So it turns out they weren't being lazy after all. I hope they'll be able to fix this soon.